Dear VCS Community,
Welcome back from the summer and to the 2025-2026 school year!
Our staff is working hard to prepare for the upcoming school year and we look forward to welcoming our students back to the first day of school on Wednesday, August 13th. This day will follow a minimum day schedule.
Please visit our website to view the “bell schedule” for each school.
Please visit our website to view the calendar for the 2025-2026 school year.
Read below for important information, updates, and reflections on our collective work.
Back to School Events
We are excited to see all of our VCS families at our upcoming back to school events!
🐺 VCES Meet the teachers will be held on Monday, August 11th from 3:30pm-5:00pm.
🐍 VCMS Orientation will be held on Tuesday, August 12th. All new and returning students should attend and be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Please visit here for more detailed information for locations and times for each grade level.
Staffing Updates
We are pleased to announce talented new staff members who are invested in our mission, vision, and practices as an organization, as well as staff members who are transitioning into new roles this fall.
VCES (you can find VCES staff biographies here)
- Parinaz Banks, VCES principal (although Parinaz has been previously announced to the community and began officially July 1, this will be her first official school year with us!)
- Kristin Davidson, TK teacher
- Jenna Racca, 2nd grade teacher
- Mrs. Aronchick has shifted to a 1st grade teacher role.
- Ms. Salonga has shifted to a kindergarten teacher role.
VCMS (you can find VCMS staff biographies here)
- As a reminder, I will be serving as the acting principal for VCMS during Brenda Sadeghi’s maternity leave this fall. I look forward to supporting our VCMS families, teachers, and students during this time!
- Russel Escasenas, 6th grade math teacher
- Kathryn Lamb, resource specialist teacher
- Tania Martinez, 8th grade ELA teacher
- Livi Perez, Community Coordinator role (new role!)
- Millie Reese, 7th grade ELA teacher
- Sasha Camposano, dean of students
- Melissa Termini, 7th and 8th grade art teacher (new role!)
- Don York, 7th and 8th grade physical education teacher
- Ms. Armaz is shifting her role from an assistant teacher to a math intervention teacher.
- Ms. Paoletta is shifting her role to become the special education coordinator.
Reflections and Goal Setting for the 25-26 School Year
This will be my 6th year serving as executive director of Valley Charter Schools. I’m looking forward to returning for another year with this wonderful community: our dedicated staff, engaged families, and curious students. As we head into 25-26, I wanted to share a few thoughts regarding areas to celebrate and areas of growth. While the list is not exhaustive, each item is connected to our mission, vision, and the goals we established at the beginning of last year.
Areas to celebrate
- The majority of our families feel a strong sense of belonging and have confidence in safety at both VCES and VCMS.
- Close to 100% of our families participated in student conferences in October and March.
- Staff retention rates for effective, certificated educators are above 85% at each school.
- Students at VCES & VCMS demonstrated strong growth based on our iReady assessments, with the majority of students meeting their typical annual growth goals at each school and a healthy percentage meeting their stretch goals.
- The majority of students at VCES are at or above grade level in math and reading as measured by iReady and CAASSP assessments.
- VCES math achievement, as measured by the end of year CAASSP assessments for 3rd-5th graders, increased by 8%.
- VCMS ELA achievement, as measured by the end of year CAASSP assessments for 6th-8th graders, increased by 10% and went up two performance levels on the California Dashboard.
- VCES’s chronic absenteeism rate decreased by 4%.
- Total applications for VCS have increased from the previous year.
- Suspension rates at VCES and VCMS remain well below the state average.
Areas for growth
- We aim to increase overall attendance at each school to 95% and reduce the percentage of students who are chronically absent by at least 5%.
- Though we’ve made steady progress, VCES and VCMS will continue to focus on raising math and ELA proficiency levels for all students, as well as for our significant sub-groups, as measured by CAASPP. In this way we can fulfill our mission of closing the achievement gap within a diverse student body.
- VCES and VCMS aim to continue to increase students’ and families’ sense of belonging as measured by the annual survey.
- VCES and VCMS aim to continue to increase the amount of student applications for the upcoming school year.
VCS School Governance Needs and Information
We are seeking two Parent Faculty Council representatives at Valley Charter Middle School. If you are interested in serving, please email me at cyaffe@valleycharterschool.org. The responsibilities include attending five PFC meetings per year (September, October, January, February and May).
New board member: We are pleased to announce that Ashley Jacobson will be serving as the VCMS Parent Representative beginning in August! Please read about Ashley below:
As a proud Valley Charter parent for the past four years, with two more to go until my youngest graduates, I’m deeply invested in the continued success of our school. I’m enthusiastic about the opportunity to serve on the board and help ensure that VCMS remains a supportive, innovative, and community-driven environment for all our children. I believe in the mission of Valley Charter and am committed to working collaboratively to help make our school the very best it can be.
Returning board members:
- Joni Angel, Board Chair
- Jonathan Tiongco, VCS Board Member
- Rachel Hazlehurst, VCS Board Member
- Angela Saldivar, Board Secretary
- Rohit Sharma, VCES Parent Representative
You can view our board calendar and board member biographies here.
Departing board member: We are sad to share that Haleigh Baker, who has served on the VCS Board for the past several years, will be stepping down as a board member at the end of August. We thank Haleigh for her service to VCS and will miss her presence and insights as a board member.
Valley Charter Schools’ Family and Student Handbooks
Each school’s handbook is updated each year to include any new required annual notices, as well as include any revisions or updates to school policies. Each school’s handbook will be live at this link by August 8th, 2025 and will be sent via each principal’s weekly email on Monday, August 11th. Please review carefully to understand expectations and guidelines for each school.
A note about the current immigration enforcement activities happening across Los Angeles:
VCS is committed to ensuring that our students feel safe attending school and our families feel safe sending their children to school. It is a constitutional right for every child to have access to a free and equitable education, regardless of their immigration status or any other protected characteristic. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are not permitted to enter schools without a judicial warrant, nor are schools required to provide information regarding immigration status. In addition, VCS does not collect or store information regarding citizenship status for our students or their families. VCS has collated a set of resources and posted them on our website: VCS Immigration Resources – Know Your Rights! If your family is experiencing hardship due to current immigration enforcement efforts, please reach out if we can be of support.
Family Engagement at Valley Charter
Our students thrive when our families are engaged with their schooling. We are grateful for our incredibly committed families at VCS and also know that engagement looks different for each family, based on their circumstances.
To better understand how we approach family engagement at Valley Charter, please review our VCS Family Engagement Framework; this provides the why, what, and how of family engagement at VCS. Please review!
Let us know how you’d like to be involved this year by filling out the parent engagement form for your student’s school (links below)!
Important Information about Attendance, Student Learning, and Charter School Funding
While we know that sometimes absences are unavoidable due to illness or a family obligation, daily attendance is crucial to your child’s success in school. In addition to the direct connection between daily attendance and academic success, attendance is the main driver of funding to our schools. Valley Charter Schools is an independent, public charter school. This means that like all public schools in the state of California, we are funded based on “average daily attendance” (ADA). For every day that your child attends school, VCS receives a prescribed amount of money (it varies based on grade level) and that money is used to fund everything at the school from facilities to staff members to supplies. When your child is absent, the school does not receive funding for that day. Collectively, each absence has a great impact on our school budgets, close to $100,000 a year between our two schools. Simply put, if we increase attendance, we increase opportunities for all our students.
With this in mind and because daily attendance is crucial to your child’s success in school, we want each family to be aware of the following:
- Please avoid scheduling family vacations or excursions during school days.
- If you need to schedule a doctor or dentist appointment, please try to schedule it in the morning or afternoon so that your child does not miss the entire day.
- We want your child to be in school if they are healthy. Please continue to keep your child home if they are ill or recovering from illness (e.g., you must wait 24 hours after your child has had a fever or vomited and must follow any additional guidelines for illnesses such as COVID-19).
- Please note that if a student is absent from school, they cannot attend a school-sponsored event on that given day.
VCS COVID-19 Guidelines for the 25-26 School Year
In the event of a positive case on campus: VCS will continue to use the group contact tracing protocol and send out group notifications in the event that a student or staff member tests positive for COVID-19 and has exposed other community members. If someone tests positive but has not been on campus within the prescribed guidelines, a notification will not be sent out.
Masking: VCS follows the LAC DPH guidelines for masking. Based on these guidelines, masking is currently strongly recommended but not required for students exposed to COVID-19 in a school setting. Masking is required for students who have been exposed in their household or who are returning from isolation.
Independent Study: Please note that VCS will not be offering independent study during isolation periods in SY 25/26. Because of the shortened duration of required isolation, absences for COVID-19 will be treated like any other illness.
Please visit this webpage for our comprehensive COVID-19 guidelines.
If your child tests positive for COVID-19 at any point during the school year, please complete the appropriate survey (survey link below).
If anyone in your household tests positive for COVID-19 at any point during the school year, please complete the appropriate survey (survey links below).
Looking forward to a wonderful school year ahead!
Carolyn & the VCS team
Valley Charter Schools 